Probably just as well I didn't post anything yesterday. I was in an absolutely rotten mood, partly brought about by some political changes (absolutely everything coming from the provincial level is absurd these days) and partly because I was stressed due to a bunch of last-minute homework-related demands from the children. I need a bit more time to prepare, so that the printer has enough ink, I can find old family photos, or whatever. Also, transit has been particularly terrible for two days straight, but the weather has gotten so cold that, even were my hands in better shape, I wouldn't be biking.
Last night was a bit better. We got the printer going, and my daughter was done with her homework not long after dinner. My cold seems to have moved into a new phase, where I am still congested but my nose is much less runny. I can live with that. I decided I was no longer contagious, and I did make it over to the gym (before the freakish cold snap descended). I'm still having trouble with the machines where you push the bars, but I'm getting pretty close to my pre-accident loads with the machines where you pull. I still seem a long way away from being totally recovered though. Maybe by the spring. It will definitely be a challenge, but I'll try to get over to the gym twice a week through the winter. It's good that it is so close, and also I usually am a bit more motivated to go if I can combine the trip with a shopping trip or a grocery run.
I am excited that I've finally hit DeLillo's White Noise in my reading list. I liked this a lot when I read it (probably in my 20s). I hope I feel the same about it this time around. I'll know soon enough and will report back in a while.
Thursday, November 22, 2018
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Sickness Dragging On
I really had hoped and even expected to be over this lingering cold by now. It goes in cycles from where I am not that bothered by it to days like today where I simply cannot get my runny nose under control and I feel like complete crap. I don't think I've been completely healthy since the accident, and it is possible that my white blood cells are still dealing with that and not fighting the cold.
Anyway, I took the whole weekend off from going to the gym, so I feel a bit guilty about that. As it happens, I still did not really take it easy the rest of the time (as I should have). I went and saw two plays on Saturday (both closing, so I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter), and then today I spent some time cleaning up in preparation for a visit from my father-in-law. I did squeeze in a nap though, and I did leave a few tasks undone (which will then kind of nag at me unless I can do them tomorrow).
But what I really need is to get enough sleep, so I'll be heading to bed soon (and not catching up on the blog). I do hope that I feel better tomorrow, but I don't expect any miracle cures.
As it happens, I am skimming quickly through the poetry of Fernando Pessoa, and I see he has a poem that starts "I have a bad cold." How appropriate. In general, his poetry doesn't do that much for me, though this one definitely caught my attention. The entire poem is here.
Pessoa aside, my main reading is T.C. Boyle's The Road to Wellville, which is about how J.H. Kellogg, purveyor of corn flakes, built an empire on restorative cures (and strict vegetarianism) that was basically one step removed from pure quackery. His theories were not so far different from Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop and probably not much less harmful... More than anything, it points to how hope triumphs over experience (and even rationality) when it comes to people trying to regain their health and, in some sense, trying to cheat death. I don't think I'm at death's door, but I would certainly welcome a super pill to knock out this cold for the rest of the winter.
Anyway, I took the whole weekend off from going to the gym, so I feel a bit guilty about that. As it happens, I still did not really take it easy the rest of the time (as I should have). I went and saw two plays on Saturday (both closing, so I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter), and then today I spent some time cleaning up in preparation for a visit from my father-in-law. I did squeeze in a nap though, and I did leave a few tasks undone (which will then kind of nag at me unless I can do them tomorrow).
But what I really need is to get enough sleep, so I'll be heading to bed soon (and not catching up on the blog). I do hope that I feel better tomorrow, but I don't expect any miracle cures.
As it happens, I am skimming quickly through the poetry of Fernando Pessoa, and I see he has a poem that starts "I have a bad cold." How appropriate. In general, his poetry doesn't do that much for me, though this one definitely caught my attention. The entire poem is here.
Pessoa aside, my main reading is T.C. Boyle's The Road to Wellville, which is about how J.H. Kellogg, purveyor of corn flakes, built an empire on restorative cures (and strict vegetarianism) that was basically one step removed from pure quackery. His theories were not so far different from Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop and probably not much less harmful... More than anything, it points to how hope triumphs over experience (and even rationality) when it comes to people trying to regain their health and, in some sense, trying to cheat death. I don't think I'm at death's door, but I would certainly welcome a super pill to knock out this cold for the rest of the winter.
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Turning Point
While this post will mostly be about finally hitting a turning point in my reading list where I am enjoying the books more often than not, I will use the opportunity to post a few pictures of the turning leaves.
One of the downsides of living in Toronto is that leaves turn colour later than in the surrounding countryside. Also, we don't usually have that many stretches of trees, aside from going over the Don Valley. But we do have street trees that change colour.
Also, I bought a burning bush. It didn't turn the vibrant red I was hoping for. As fall began, it started out as more of a dusty plum colour.
Though later the red came out slightly more.
I'll just have to hope that by next fall, it has absorbed more nutrients or whatever it takes for the base colour to be red in the first place.
Somewhat ironically, I have another small bush that was more red than the burning bush.
And here are some other interesting fall colours in the front yard.
All in all, a decent fall, though it is already getting quite chilly (a bit too soon for my taste) and it will be snowing before we know it.*
Ok, on to the literature. With a few exceptions (such as Mary McCarthy's Birds of America, which I am slowly working my way through and some of the stories in Julian Barnes's Pulse), I really have not enjoyed much of the fiction I've read since basically the summer. This includes the frankly terrible Far from the Madding Crowd, and the quite disappointing The Death of My Brother Abel and Faulkner's A Fable. I thought the writing in Didion's Play It As It Lays was fine, but got a bit bored by the characters' endless ennui. While slight, Kawakami Ms. Ice Sandwich was not bad, though I was through with it in a day.
To some extent, that is just the luck of the draw. Speaking of luck (or at least chance), I did enjoy Paul Auster's Moon Palace. This is a book I owned forever (since just after undergrad) but must have lost in a book purging, so I replaced it a while back and finally read it. Some readers didn't like just how many outrageous coincidences there were in the book. I didn't mind that so much. You know you'll probably get such things in an Auster novel. Interestingly, this was a completely straight narrative (though some stories within stories). There were no postmodern touches at all.
I've tried to arrange the reading list so the next few months will be a bit less grueling. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy rereading DeLillo's White Noise. Then I'll be tackling Updike's Rabbit novels. Then it's all the way back to the classics, reading Homer and Virgil's The Aeneid in a few different translations. But then I am going to try to read Montaigne's Essays. If I am not enjoying them, I'll set them aside for a while. (Given that I wasn't all that taken by the randomness of Tokarczuk's Flights, I've decided to postpone Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet for a few months.) At some point, either very late Dec. or early Jan., I want to tackle Musil's The Man Without Qualities. However, I do have a sinking suspicion that this is going to be a tough nut to crack (and certainly to actually enjoy!), and it doesn't help that the tome appears to be too heavy to really read on the commute in (even when split into two volumes). I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Fairly shortly after Musil, I will "reward" myself for getting through it by rereading Powers' Morte d'Urban. This was a novel (about a priest who finds humility in a rural parish in Minnesota) that I found surprisingly moving, given my general indifference or occasional outright hostility to religion. At any rate, I am curious to find if I feel the same way about the novel and its protagonist now.
* Indeed, it snowed a fair bit this afternoon, making the evening commute a real mess, even for people on transit. I guess I'll have to break out the boots. I should have gone to the gym tonight, but just couldn't face going back out in that weather. But obviously I'll have to toughen up and soon. Otherwise, all this will have been in vain if I gain back all the weight I lost this year.
One of the downsides of living in Toronto is that leaves turn colour later than in the surrounding countryside. Also, we don't usually have that many stretches of trees, aside from going over the Don Valley. But we do have street trees that change colour.
Also, I bought a burning bush. It didn't turn the vibrant red I was hoping for. As fall began, it started out as more of a dusty plum colour.
Though later the red came out slightly more.
I'll just have to hope that by next fall, it has absorbed more nutrients or whatever it takes for the base colour to be red in the first place.
Somewhat ironically, I have another small bush that was more red than the burning bush.
And here are some other interesting fall colours in the front yard.
All in all, a decent fall, though it is already getting quite chilly (a bit too soon for my taste) and it will be snowing before we know it.*
Ok, on to the literature. With a few exceptions (such as Mary McCarthy's Birds of America, which I am slowly working my way through and some of the stories in Julian Barnes's Pulse), I really have not enjoyed much of the fiction I've read since basically the summer. This includes the frankly terrible Far from the Madding Crowd, and the quite disappointing The Death of My Brother Abel and Faulkner's A Fable. I thought the writing in Didion's Play It As It Lays was fine, but got a bit bored by the characters' endless ennui. While slight, Kawakami Ms. Ice Sandwich was not bad, though I was through with it in a day.
To some extent, that is just the luck of the draw. Speaking of luck (or at least chance), I did enjoy Paul Auster's Moon Palace. This is a book I owned forever (since just after undergrad) but must have lost in a book purging, so I replaced it a while back and finally read it. Some readers didn't like just how many outrageous coincidences there were in the book. I didn't mind that so much. You know you'll probably get such things in an Auster novel. Interestingly, this was a completely straight narrative (though some stories within stories). There were no postmodern touches at all.
I've tried to arrange the reading list so the next few months will be a bit less grueling. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy rereading DeLillo's White Noise. Then I'll be tackling Updike's Rabbit novels. Then it's all the way back to the classics, reading Homer and Virgil's The Aeneid in a few different translations. But then I am going to try to read Montaigne's Essays. If I am not enjoying them, I'll set them aside for a while. (Given that I wasn't all that taken by the randomness of Tokarczuk's Flights, I've decided to postpone Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet for a few months.) At some point, either very late Dec. or early Jan., I want to tackle Musil's The Man Without Qualities. However, I do have a sinking suspicion that this is going to be a tough nut to crack (and certainly to actually enjoy!), and it doesn't help that the tome appears to be too heavy to really read on the commute in (even when split into two volumes). I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Fairly shortly after Musil, I will "reward" myself for getting through it by rereading Powers' Morte d'Urban. This was a novel (about a priest who finds humility in a rural parish in Minnesota) that I found surprisingly moving, given my general indifference or occasional outright hostility to religion. At any rate, I am curious to find if I feel the same way about the novel and its protagonist now.
* Indeed, it snowed a fair bit this afternoon, making the evening commute a real mess, even for people on transit. I guess I'll have to break out the boots. I should have gone to the gym tonight, but just couldn't face going back out in that weather. But obviously I'll have to toughen up and soon. Otherwise, all this will have been in vain if I gain back all the weight I lost this year.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
12th Canadian Challenge - 9th Review - Billy Bishop Goes to War
Appropriately enough for a play which has been revived many, many times, there are actually two published versions of this play. The main one was published by Talonbooks in 1981. This was a relatively short time after the play opened in Vancouver in 1978 (roughly around Remembrance Day). The play was written by John Gray, though the original idea actually came from Eric Peterson, who played Billy (with John typically playing piano accompaniment). It sounds like a very collaborative effort throughout. Comparing the two plays, the introduction for the original edition is a bit droller, focusing on how they wrote this play, largely because they were unemployed theatre-types with nothing better to do. The recent edition (2012) focuses more on the different interpretations (and other actors) after Eric and John more or less retired from performing the piece. The introduction also explains how and why Albert Schultz (the disgraced AD of Soulpepper) convinced them to revive the play in 2009. There is a bit of a twist, which they worked out with Ted Dykstra. This time around, the play is much more explicitly a memory play and Billy is an old man, going through his old trunks, reminiscing about his wartime exploits.
This is obviously the version I saw. Indeed, the remount travelled back to Vancouver (I think just before I made it out there) and then came back one more time to Toronto, and I caught it in 2017. I was certainly glad to see Eric Peterson in the role, though I had seen him in a couple of other things by that point. There is also a DVD shot in 2013, and that is probably worth checking out if you never saw Peterson (in his prime or as the aged Bishop).
While the set-up and staging is fairly different between the two plays, interestingly enough the actual dialogue is identical in the two versions, except for the last couple of pages. If it is a young actor in the role then Bishop becomes a recruiting officer giving a speech to the young cadets enlisting for WWII (as he did in real life) whereas if it is an older actor, then there is another letter from Bishop to his wife, Margaret, about missing war.
Regardless of the age of the actor, it is quite a bravura piece of theatre. The actor must play Bishop, as well as a dozen or so other characters he interacts with (a drill sergeant, generals, an upper-class lady, a torch singer and even King George V). He also must be able to sing reasonably well, since Bishop (sometimes supported by the piano player) has a number of songs.
The play follows Bishop from his early days in Canada where he barely squeaked through Royal Military College (and he might well have been expelled if he hadn't enlisted as soon as WWI broke out), then he ships out to the front. He tries to figure a way to get out of the mud and is convinced to try out for the Royal Flying Corps. His progression isn't that smooth, but he eventually becomes a much decorated hero, at which point he is sidelined, as it would be too demoralizing were he to be shot down. It's a clever and fairly humourous piece, carried along by Peterson in all his roles. I think there is no question it works better on stage than on the page, but that isn't always an option (always an issue when studying a play). If you can check out the 2nd edition, that is probably the way to go, but as I indicated the differences are pretty slight overall.
This is obviously the version I saw. Indeed, the remount travelled back to Vancouver (I think just before I made it out there) and then came back one more time to Toronto, and I caught it in 2017. I was certainly glad to see Eric Peterson in the role, though I had seen him in a couple of other things by that point. There is also a DVD shot in 2013, and that is probably worth checking out if you never saw Peterson (in his prime or as the aged Bishop).
While the set-up and staging is fairly different between the two plays, interestingly enough the actual dialogue is identical in the two versions, except for the last couple of pages. If it is a young actor in the role then Bishop becomes a recruiting officer giving a speech to the young cadets enlisting for WWII (as he did in real life) whereas if it is an older actor, then there is another letter from Bishop to his wife, Margaret, about missing war.
Regardless of the age of the actor, it is quite a bravura piece of theatre. The actor must play Bishop, as well as a dozen or so other characters he interacts with (a drill sergeant, generals, an upper-class lady, a torch singer and even King George V). He also must be able to sing reasonably well, since Bishop (sometimes supported by the piano player) has a number of songs.
The play follows Bishop from his early days in Canada where he barely squeaked through Royal Military College (and he might well have been expelled if he hadn't enlisted as soon as WWI broke out), then he ships out to the front. He tries to figure a way to get out of the mud and is convinced to try out for the Royal Flying Corps. His progression isn't that smooth, but he eventually becomes a much decorated hero, at which point he is sidelined, as it would be too demoralizing were he to be shot down. It's a clever and fairly humourous piece, carried along by Peterson in all his roles. I think there is no question it works better on stage than on the page, but that isn't always an option (always an issue when studying a play). If you can check out the 2nd edition, that is probably the way to go, but as I indicated the differences are pretty slight overall.
Saturday, November 10, 2018
WWI novels
This post will be full of completely idiosyncratic thoughts on my recent readings, and not a properly researched post (here is a slightly more useful thread with some decent recommendations, though personally I didn't enjoy Ford Maddox Ford's Parade's End and don't imagine I'll try it out a second time to see if I like it more). In any case, scattershot or not, I thought I might as well pull them together, since this Sunday will be the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, marking the end of WWI. There is no question that WWII has much better representation in novels and film, not least because it seemed to serve a larger moral purpose (at least in retrospective almost anything could be justified in stopping Hitler) and wasn't just a stupid war that the various countries stumbled into (and thus not really worthy of being celebrated).
That said, one can always celebrate war coming to an end. There was an interesting story in the Toronto Star about how there was "fake news" back in 1918 where some reporter thought the war would end on Nov. 7 (not 11) and this led to widespread celebrations, including in Toronto, which then had to be put on hold as it became clear the reporter had jumped the gun. There is an interesting parallel to this in Faulkner's A Fable, where a mutinying regiment almost brings about a premature end to the war until the generals jump in and restore order. I've already gone into some detail about how much I disliked A Fable, and I would absolutely not recommend it. That said, the concepts in the novel are interesting (if Faulkner does strain far too much in referencing every last element of the Christ story) but the execution leaves a lot to be desired!
A much better bet is Timothy Findley's The Wars, which focuses on a young Canadian soldier and the horse from home he more or less follows and tries to protect.* I have to admit that I didn't latch onto The Wars as much as some have done, but I'll probably reread it one of these days. As an aside, while I had seen Findley at a reading many years ago, I never did get an autograph from him. While buying a second-hand autograph is a little bit crass, I will do this under certain circumstances, and I found a reasonably priced autographed copy of The Wars, which I just ordered. (In addition, a bookstore on the west side has The Telling of Lies, and I'll probably pick that up later in the week.)
I have been meaning to review Billy Bishop Goes to War, both the play (I saw a revival last year at Soulpepper) and the script. This focuses on the young Canadian pilot who became the most successful fighter pilot against the German air force, even surpassing a few UK pilots. I'll see if I can carve out some time to review this tomorrow.
Perhaps the most significant literary figure (aside from Faulkner) to really tackle WWI was John Dos Passos. There are many references to soldiers or former soldiers in The USA Trilogy. But he dives in even more with One Man's Initiation: 1917 (largely based on his own wartime experience) and Three Soldiers. These two novels are bundled with Manhattan Transfer in a single Library of America volume. I had really only planned on reading Manhattan Transfer, but I stumbled across an incredible deal and couldn't resist. I think it will be quite a while before I actually read those two WWI novels, however, but I thought I would at least mention them here.
I think that's really all I had to say on the matter for now, but, as I said, I'll probably review Billy Bishop tomorrow.
* The play (and movie) War Horse is supposedly based on the work (of the same name) by Michael Morpurgo and not The Wars, though if I had been in charge of Findley's estate, I would definitely have asked if there might have been some unauthorized reuse of themes and materials. Just sayin'...
That said, one can always celebrate war coming to an end. There was an interesting story in the Toronto Star about how there was "fake news" back in 1918 where some reporter thought the war would end on Nov. 7 (not 11) and this led to widespread celebrations, including in Toronto, which then had to be put on hold as it became clear the reporter had jumped the gun. There is an interesting parallel to this in Faulkner's A Fable, where a mutinying regiment almost brings about a premature end to the war until the generals jump in and restore order. I've already gone into some detail about how much I disliked A Fable, and I would absolutely not recommend it. That said, the concepts in the novel are interesting (if Faulkner does strain far too much in referencing every last element of the Christ story) but the execution leaves a lot to be desired!
A much better bet is Timothy Findley's The Wars, which focuses on a young Canadian soldier and the horse from home he more or less follows and tries to protect.* I have to admit that I didn't latch onto The Wars as much as some have done, but I'll probably reread it one of these days. As an aside, while I had seen Findley at a reading many years ago, I never did get an autograph from him. While buying a second-hand autograph is a little bit crass, I will do this under certain circumstances, and I found a reasonably priced autographed copy of The Wars, which I just ordered. (In addition, a bookstore on the west side has The Telling of Lies, and I'll probably pick that up later in the week.)
I have been meaning to review Billy Bishop Goes to War, both the play (I saw a revival last year at Soulpepper) and the script. This focuses on the young Canadian pilot who became the most successful fighter pilot against the German air force, even surpassing a few UK pilots. I'll see if I can carve out some time to review this tomorrow.
Perhaps the most significant literary figure (aside from Faulkner) to really tackle WWI was John Dos Passos. There are many references to soldiers or former soldiers in The USA Trilogy. But he dives in even more with One Man's Initiation: 1917 (largely based on his own wartime experience) and Three Soldiers. These two novels are bundled with Manhattan Transfer in a single Library of America volume. I had really only planned on reading Manhattan Transfer, but I stumbled across an incredible deal and couldn't resist. I think it will be quite a while before I actually read those two WWI novels, however, but I thought I would at least mention them here.
I think that's really all I had to say on the matter for now, but, as I said, I'll probably review Billy Bishop tomorrow.
* The play (and movie) War Horse is supposedly based on the work (of the same name) by Michael Morpurgo and not The Wars, though if I had been in charge of Findley's estate, I would definitely have asked if there might have been some unauthorized reuse of themes and materials. Just sayin'...
Friday, November 9, 2018
Award-Winning Disappointments
It is silly of me to really rely on external judgments, since one's taste in reading is so personal. On the other hand, there is so much out there to read or to watch, that sometimes is can be welcome to look over the major literary award winners to help sort through (and screen out) the huge numbers of books that still are produced every year. There's almost always something from the Man Booker Prize short or long list that catches my attention (though more often than not, it isn't the actual winner). My reading list is definitely not constructed from these various award lists, but occasionally I will add a prize-winner book if it seems sufficiently intriguing.
All this said, I still take it that much harder when I find myself really disappointed with one of these award-winning books, since so many other people had vetted it. I think my single worst disappointment (with a Booker winner) was Ben Okri's The Famished Road. Boy, I did not like that novel. I don't remember anything about it, other than hating it.
My reactions are much more muted with a very recent Man Booker International winner, Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. It's certainly different and not really a novel at all, or at least an extremely episodic novel, basically re-enacting the experience of going from one thing to another in a cabinet of curiosities. Well over half of the entries are mini-meditations on travel as well as on human anatomy, including quite a lot on how to prepare bodies to display them after death! Fictional pieces (with actual characters) are a smaller percentage by number, but as they are much longer (3 to 30+ pages), they take up much more of the book. Occasionally, characters reappear, but usually they are there in one-off appearances. This New Yorker piece is a fair assessment of the novel. I was much more into those cabinet of curiosity-type museums when I was younger but kind of outgrew that phase. It probably doesn't help that I find plasticine-based exhibits, such as Body Worlds, to be fairly stupid and gross (rather than enlightening as Tokarczuk's narrator does). I didn't find the fictional stories too interesting, as they didn't go anywhere, though the final story about a classics professor on a cruise ship touring Greece had its strengths. There were certainly moments of recognition (ah-ha moments) and passages I did enjoy, but I actually did a count and there are only 20 pages that I would bother to read again. Out of a 400 page novel, this is a pretty measly score, so I would definitely say it overstayed its welcome.
Nonetheless, in comparison to Faulkner's A Fable, this was a raging success. I am so disappointed with this novel. I am just baffled that it won the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. I can only imagine this was sort of like the Oscar Award given for lifetime achievement, i.e. we all agree Faulkner's great, so let's give him an award already. If not, then they really hated their readership! A Fable is Faulkner at his most extreme, which I suppose can be good or bad, depending on your perspective. I certainly found that the charm of following two-page paragraphs (or even two-page sentences!) had worn off. Throughout the novel, Faulkner also almost never uses proper names (he does relent a tiny bit when the three women, representing the Three Marys, appear), so you have to really work to figure out who "he" is referring to. At one point, in the middle of an elephantine paragraph, the subject switches from a general to his elderly batsman. Frankly, I don't appreciate this at all. I value clarity in writing, and Faulkner is intentionally making this work hard to read. (As an aside, Garcia Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch is written very much in the high-baroque style of Faulkner. I did enjoy it (or at least had high tolerance for this) in my 20s. I suspect I would be a lot less enamored now.) I'm going to be honest and say that I can't even tell if Faulkner has combined two figures (an Englishman with a way with horses, who becomes a Mason and a saintly French orphan who goes into the army) into one, or if one stands in for Peter and one for Jesus. That's how confusing this novel is! (There is another passage where some soldiers swear that the corporal had already been buried at sea, but he was Polish then, so it is certainly possible that Faulkner is making (badly) some point about the universal nature of Christ's love.) Most of the dialogue is very elusive as well and not remotely like something one person would actually say to another, particularly when one of the Marys claims to the old general (presumably Pontius Pilate) that the corporal (who is a transparent Christ-figure) is actually his son. (The content of the speech might be conveyed, but not the 3 or 4 page delivery...) Again, this is Faulkner being very direct (relatively-speaking). Much more often, it is endless variations of one person stopping short of delivering an actual message and implying that the hearer should already know what is not being said. Where I really, truly lost patience with this novel was that I could maybe just buy that a regiment would mutiny and refuse to leave the trenches (inspired by the teachings of a Christ-like figure), but I draw the line at all these other soldiers replacing mortar fire and bullets with harmless dummies (almost like something out of Hogan's Heroes, though that was the follow-up war). It was so unnecessary to add this and really diluted the original message of the novel (already far too convoluted). I really should just drop A Fable, which I am basically just hate-reading at this point, but I do feel strangely compelled to grind it out. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, however, that's for sure!
Edit (5/31/2020): This is old news, and I commented on Lincoln in the Bardo already elsewhere, but, wow, what a terrible novel to win the Booker. I actually find it such a terrible novel that it devalues the Booker Prize itself. I do think their prize committees for the past few years have made some very poor choices.
All this said, I still take it that much harder when I find myself really disappointed with one of these award-winning books, since so many other people had vetted it. I think my single worst disappointment (with a Booker winner) was Ben Okri's The Famished Road. Boy, I did not like that novel. I don't remember anything about it, other than hating it.
My reactions are much more muted with a very recent Man Booker International winner, Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. It's certainly different and not really a novel at all, or at least an extremely episodic novel, basically re-enacting the experience of going from one thing to another in a cabinet of curiosities. Well over half of the entries are mini-meditations on travel as well as on human anatomy, including quite a lot on how to prepare bodies to display them after death! Fictional pieces (with actual characters) are a smaller percentage by number, but as they are much longer (3 to 30+ pages), they take up much more of the book. Occasionally, characters reappear, but usually they are there in one-off appearances. This New Yorker piece is a fair assessment of the novel. I was much more into those cabinet of curiosity-type museums when I was younger but kind of outgrew that phase. It probably doesn't help that I find plasticine-based exhibits, such as Body Worlds, to be fairly stupid and gross (rather than enlightening as Tokarczuk's narrator does). I didn't find the fictional stories too interesting, as they didn't go anywhere, though the final story about a classics professor on a cruise ship touring Greece had its strengths. There were certainly moments of recognition (ah-ha moments) and passages I did enjoy, but I actually did a count and there are only 20 pages that I would bother to read again. Out of a 400 page novel, this is a pretty measly score, so I would definitely say it overstayed its welcome.
Nonetheless, in comparison to Faulkner's A Fable, this was a raging success. I am so disappointed with this novel. I am just baffled that it won the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. I can only imagine this was sort of like the Oscar Award given for lifetime achievement, i.e. we all agree Faulkner's great, so let's give him an award already. If not, then they really hated their readership! A Fable is Faulkner at his most extreme, which I suppose can be good or bad, depending on your perspective. I certainly found that the charm of following two-page paragraphs (or even two-page sentences!) had worn off. Throughout the novel, Faulkner also almost never uses proper names (he does relent a tiny bit when the three women, representing the Three Marys, appear), so you have to really work to figure out who "he" is referring to. At one point, in the middle of an elephantine paragraph, the subject switches from a general to his elderly batsman. Frankly, I don't appreciate this at all. I value clarity in writing, and Faulkner is intentionally making this work hard to read. (As an aside, Garcia Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch is written very much in the high-baroque style of Faulkner. I did enjoy it (or at least had high tolerance for this) in my 20s. I suspect I would be a lot less enamored now.) I'm going to be honest and say that I can't even tell if Faulkner has combined two figures (an Englishman with a way with horses, who becomes a Mason and a saintly French orphan who goes into the army) into one, or if one stands in for Peter and one for Jesus. That's how confusing this novel is! (There is another passage where some soldiers swear that the corporal had already been buried at sea, but he was Polish then, so it is certainly possible that Faulkner is making (badly) some point about the universal nature of Christ's love.) Most of the dialogue is very elusive as well and not remotely like something one person would actually say to another, particularly when one of the Marys claims to the old general (presumably Pontius Pilate) that the corporal (who is a transparent Christ-figure) is actually his son. (The content of the speech might be conveyed, but not the 3 or 4 page delivery...) Again, this is Faulkner being very direct (relatively-speaking). Much more often, it is endless variations of one person stopping short of delivering an actual message and implying that the hearer should already know what is not being said. Where I really, truly lost patience with this novel was that I could maybe just buy that a regiment would mutiny and refuse to leave the trenches (inspired by the teachings of a Christ-like figure), but I draw the line at all these other soldiers replacing mortar fire and bullets with harmless dummies (almost like something out of Hogan's Heroes, though that was the follow-up war). It was so unnecessary to add this and really diluted the original message of the novel (already far too convoluted). I really should just drop A Fable, which I am basically just hate-reading at this point, but I do feel strangely compelled to grind it out. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, however, that's for sure!
Edit (5/31/2020): This is old news, and I commented on Lincoln in the Bardo already elsewhere, but, wow, what a terrible novel to win the Booker. I actually find it such a terrible novel that it devalues the Booker Prize itself. I do think their prize committees for the past few years have made some very poor choices.
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Return to Sanity?
Tuesday was definitely a step in the right direction, though there were a few Senate races that ended up being disappointments. Trump is certainly going to find it a lot less fun being in Washington when he can't get anything through Congress (and is the subject of endless probes starting in the House). Too bad that those absurd tax cuts already went through. I never thought I would welcome gridlock, but it is definitely better that than having the Cheetoh-in-Chief running the country down into the ground. Still am hoping for the break-up of the US into smaller, more reasonable countries since as it stands the red states are making the US an international laughingstock. Probably won't happen in my lifetime, but here's hoping. In the short-term, I am at least willing to do a bit of traveling back to the States, though Florida is definitely off the list.
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